This invention pertains to the field of universal remote control for appliances.
It is now common practice to include a xe2x80x98multi-functionxe2x80x99 or xe2x80x98Universalxe2x80x99 remote control (URC) hand held transmitter with many consumer products (also referred to herein as devices, apparatus or appliances) such as televisions, video cassette recorders (VCR), digital video disk players (DVD), satellite receivers, compact disk players, and audio systems, to name a few. The advantage of URC""s is that the consumer can control not only the particular appliance with which it was sold (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9cfirstxe2x80x9d appliance), but the consumer can use the same device to control any of the other appliances (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9cdifferentxe2x80x9d appliance).
Because of the need to be able to control so many different appliances, i.e., TV, VCR, DVD, cable, satellite, stereo, and others, it has become common practice to provide one or more xe2x80x9csoftxe2x80x9d keys on the URC to select the device which is being addressed by the remote control at a particular time. Each time such soft key is pressed, the URC is programmed to toggle between controlling each different appliance. In the case of one such soft key, if the URC is currently controlling the TV, pressing such soft key once may toggle the control to VCR, whereas pressing it twice may toggle it to DVD. In the case of separate soft keys for each type of appliance, the URC may have one soft key for toggling the URC to control the TV, and another soft key to toggle the URC to control a first VCR, and yet another to toggle the URC to control a second VCR, and so on.
Whether a single soft key is used to cause the URC to toggle between controlling different appliances or one soft key is provided for each type of different appliance, the person using the URC frequently does not remember which appliance is xe2x80x9cactivexe2x80x9d in the URC microprocessor, i.e., the person does not remember which appliance the URC was last toggled to, and becomes confused, frustrated, and annoyed. In some cases the person believes he is controlling the TV after having inadvertently pressed the VCR device soft key and is unable to change the TV channel with a control key, or use any of the xe2x80x9cmappedxe2x80x9d keys (i.e., the keys which control other functions) until he uses the soft key to toggle back to the TV. With current technology, an appliance which is not selected via the URC soft key(s) xe2x80x9cignoresxe2x80x9d signals used to control the other appliances. In some cases this problem has resulted in unjustified warranty claims.
It is an object of this invention to solve the problem of URC users not knowing which device, apparatus or appliance has been selected for control. Another object is to provide improved URC""s, which are more convenient and user friendly with respect to warning the user when he is trying to control a device which has not been selected.
These and other objects are solved by the present invention which comprises in one aspect a system comprising a first remote controllable appliance and a universal remote control transmitter having a selection key for selecting for control either the first remote controllable appliance or a different remote controllable appliance and having control keys for causing a control signal to be transmitted for controlling the selected appliance, wherein the first appliance responds to control signals for a different appliance by indicating that the selected appliance is not the first appliance.
The first appliance can either indicate that a different appliance has been selected, or it can indicate which different appliance has been selected by interpreting control signals received from the URC.
The URC, which includes a microprocessor, is generally programmed to transmit a selected appliance identification code along with control code when a control key is pressed. Previously a soft key would have been pressed to toggle the appliance selection routine in the microprocessor, and so the selected appliance identification code can be called up and transmitted along with code transmitted in response to control key presses.
The first appliance must have a display, a synthetic voice generation system, or another indication system and a microprocessor which interprets received code from URC transmissions. As with prior art appliances, the first appliance is programmed to respond to a control code for that first appliance in the normal way, but the first appliance according to this invention is programmed to also respond to an appliance identification code which is transmitted along with control codes for other appliances which may be selected or toggled within the transmitter, and indicate which other appliance has been selected, or merely the fact that another appliance has been selected.
For example, a TV may display text such as xe2x80x9cVCRxe2x80x9d in the channel indicator location when the user tries to press a TV oriented control button when VCR has been selected. In another example, if a VCR is the first appliance and the user has used a soft key to toggle to the transmitter to control the TV and then tries to control the VCR by pressing PLAY, for example, the VCR may display the word xe2x80x9cTVxe2x80x9d to indicate the toggle state, or it may generate a synthetic voice indication saying xe2x80x9cTV selected.xe2x80x9d In this way, the user can know which remote mode is being used.
There are several advantages to the new technique, for example the low cost in that it can be implemented with only a bit more code space in an appliance, that power consumption is not affected, and that no additional display means or voice generator is required over and above the ordinary display or voice generator on the same branded appliance.
In a preferred embodiment, the supplier of the URC transmitter and the first appliance, e.g., a TV, would program the URC to transmit the selected device code at the beginning of the transmission of a control signal for each possible other device, or at the end of such a control signal. Thus, the control transmission would include the code format for controlling the different appliance, which the TV would not normally have recognized, and also code identifying the selected appliance which the TV would recognize. In this way, the receiver coding is simplified, and a very small code change is needed for the URC.
This can easily be embodied in any TV, VCR, or other device which decodes wireless (IR,RF, Sonic, etc.) remote commands, and generates an on-screen display, or front-panel indicator, voice, or any other audio or visual indicator.